Monday, April 7, 2014

Baby Fever

I've had baby fever for a while now. I don't know when I first developed it, but it was sometime after the second of my friends announced she was pregnant and before the third of my friends announced she was pregnant.

The irony is that I'm not really even a baby person. But there's nothing like the thrill of watching someone celebrate a long-planned, life-altering addition to their family to make you want to impulsively follow their lead and say, "What the heck, let's create a new human life." Besides, even if you love your 2003 Matrix, a shiny new Sienna can still make your heart skip a beat.

I've said since Pru was born that she was my last because on paper it makes no sense to expand our family, but ever since I was single, I've always felt like there was a place in my heart for three kids and I haven't shaken the feeling that someone was missing from our house. The analytical part of me feels like the only way to work through this is to make a standard Pros and Cons list and look at the facts in black and while.

Pros

1) There are brief periods in my life when I'm not overwhelmed by my two girls and I actually, probably hubristically, feel like I've got the bandwidth for another child.

2) I'm in love with the toddler/preschooler stage and dread the day there's not a lumpy, jabbering, clown living with me.

3) Since my occupation can only be described at the moment as Stay-at-Home Mom, I feel like I need to go all in. I don't have a career to go back to after my girls go to school. I don't have any plans ahead of me. The sooner my kids move to the next stage of their lives, the sooner I'll have to as well and I'm trying to delay that transition as long as possible.

4) I could have a son! There's a 51% chance. Better odds than flipping a coin!

Cons

1) Like I said before, I'm not really a baby person. I could do without a baby waking me up every two hours and throwing up on me and having to be carried everywhere. They're so needy!

2) I am in no physical shape to get pregnant again. I gained far too much weight with my last pregnancy and, just as my doctor warned, I've kept an extra ten pounds with each baby. I've had such miserable pregnancies that I felt like with each I became a hermit for a year, stuck in a sick, fat body that I couldn't function with.

3) While I always imagined a family with three kids, probably because I came from a family with three kids, my husband has always imagined a family with two kids, probably because he came from a family with two kids.

4) Adding a third child would be a lot more expensive than adding a second was. We'd need a new car seat…oh! And a car that can fit three car seats! We'd need to decorate, furnish, and move one of the children into his or her own room. And those are just the immediate expensive. We'd also have to pay for one more kid to go to church retreats and one more kid to go to college and one more kid's wedding because…

5) We have a 49% chance of having a third girl!

Peter and I have been mulling over these lists for well over a year and peace—between our heads and our hearts or between the two of us—has yet to come. It's time for me to hand the decision over to The Lord and wait on Him to quiet a longing that isn't from Him or ease the concerns that don't concern Him.

The good news is we've got a few years before we'd be decorating a nursery in the retirement home so for now we're going to enjoy our two littles and if we're ever joined by an even littler, we can all be surprised together.